Shelby, South Point renew rich football rivalry

Shelby’s Clay Huskey tackles A.C. Reynolds’ Jave Jones during the Rockets' 49-42 win Friday. The Golden Lions play South Point for the first time since 1996 this Friday.

Brittany Randolph/The Star

By Alan Ford

Published: Thursday, September 5, 2013 at 04:12 PM.

The decade from 1969 to ’78 when Woody Hayes’ Ohio State Buckeyes and Bo Schembechler’sMichigan Wolverines squared off with the Big Ten football title at stake is known in college football circles as “The Ten Year War.”

Yet there was a similar high school dogfight in this area at roughly the same time. The Shelby-South Point football encounters in the 1970s had an equal impact in the old Southwestern Conference. In that decade, the teams split 12 matchups.

The Red Raiders won six of the 10 regular-season meetings, while the Golden Lions were victorious in the only two playoff engagements.

Long before the Burns and Crest programs rose to prominence in Cleveland County, the Shelby-South Point contest was often considered the “Game of the Year” in these parts. League honors as well as playoff advancement were usually on the line.

The big showdown of the ’70s featured well-known coaches — Gerald Allen, Jim Biggerstaff, Jim Taylor, Phil Tate, Jim Horn, Earl Lingafeldt, Bob Reynolds and others. The on-field talent was even more astounding — South Point legends like Scott Crawford, Jim Stowe and Jeff Williams, while Shelby could counter with Tommy London, Hicks Beam and Alan Burris, among many others.

“Those games in 1970s were knockdown dragouts, some great football teams,” said Phil Tate, currently defensive coordinator for South Point, where he formerly served as head coach. “We haven’t played them in a while, but those were some of the greatest football games I’ve ever been a part of.

“That was a great era back then,you started getting butterflies on Wednesday.”

The decade from 1969 to ’78 when Woody Hayes’ Ohio State Buckeyes and Bo Schembechler’sMichigan Wolverines squared off with the Big Ten football title at stake is known in college football circles as “The Ten Year War.”

Yet there was a similar high school dogfight in this area at roughly the same time. The Shelby-South Point football encounters in the 1970s had an equal impact in the old Southwestern Conference. In that decade, the teams split 12 matchups.

The Red Raiders won six of the 10 regular-season meetings, while the Golden Lions were victorious in the only two playoff engagements.

Long before the Burns and Crest programs rose to prominence in Cleveland County, the Shelby-South Point contest was often considered the “Game of the Year” in these parts. League honors as well as playoff advancement were usually on the line.

The big showdown of the ’70s featured well-known coaches — Gerald Allen, Jim Biggerstaff, Jim Taylor, Phil Tate, Jim Horn, Earl Lingafeldt, Bob Reynolds and others. The on-field talent was even more astounding — South Point legends like Scott Crawford, Jim Stowe and Jeff Williams, while Shelby could counter with Tommy London, Hicks Beam and Alan Burris, among many others.

“Those games in 1970s were knockdown dragouts, some great football teams,” said Phil Tate, currently defensive coordinator for South Point, where he formerly served as head coach. “We haven’t played them in a while, but those were some of the greatest football games I’ve ever been a part of.

“That was a great era back then,you started getting butterflies on Wednesday.”

From 1970-76, the two schools still belonged to the Western North Carolina High School Activities Association. In the final seven years of the organization, Shelby played in the title game five times — twice needing postseason wins over South Point to get there — and the Red Raiders made it once.

“It was a marquee matchup,” said Shelby’s Jim Taylor, who took the Golden Lion reins from Gerald Allen in ’77. “And what made it so difficult was only one team (from the SWC) got in the playoffs back then after we left (the WNCHSAA). That made the game so much more important.”

In fact, Taylor’s first year at the helm Shelby won a showdown of 9-0 teams at Belmont in 1977 (42-7) to take the league title. South Point, though, can point to a 13-7 battle it won to cap the decade in 1979 en route to its 14-0 state championship season.

“I told our kids on Monday, and I’ve been going against Shelby since I was in high school in 1958,” said Tate, “and when I started coaching, Shelby was the program to get close to and I still feel like that.

“It brings back lots of memories. Shelby has been a great football town for a long time and we’re glad to get ’emback on the schedule.”

Taylor pointed to the fact that “it was a great rivalry and the coaches had so much respect for each other. I’m glad they’re playing again.”

Tate later served on Taylor’s staff at Shelby in the mid-1980s for one season before returning to South Point. When he was head coach of the Red Raiders, his battles with Taylor’s Shelby teams in the early 1990s revived the series a bit after the Golden Lions dominated the 1980s (9-to-2 edge).

“When we played up there, the banks were full, and when we’d come back here they were full,” said Tate. “We had bleachers in the end zone then and they’d also be eight deep around the track.

“I got to be a small part of a great coaching staff at Shelby (1984), and Jim Taylor is probably the best football coach I ever worked with. The year I spent with Jim I learned so much about football, it was a great experience.”

Shelby-South Point Memories

The high school now known as South Point opened its doors in 1964 and was still called Belmont High. It was renamed South Point in 1969. Shelby leads the all-time series with Belmont/South Point 36-14/.

1974 — SouthPoint won the regular-season game but Shelby knocked off the unbeaten Red Raiders on Dusty Haynes’ late field goal in a playoff rematch (16-14).

1977 — Seeaccompanying story.

1984 — The unbeaten Red Raiders dealt the Golden Lions their only regular-season defeat (21-8) to win the SWC in the last year only one league team qualified for the championship bracket.

1987 — Shelby’s defending state champs won a 20-19 duel down at Belmont, then got rolling to a second consecutive 3A crown with a 41-6 playoff win over the Red Raiders.

1990 — Inthe only year in which both programs had a losing record, Shelby got a dramatic 17-16 win to close the season at Blanton Memorial Stadium.

1993 — A one-point South Point win (28-27) in the season finale at Shelby — the only game in his career in which Jim Taylor was ejected — set the stage for an epic playoff rematch. The Golden Lions won a 35-34 double-overtime thriller in Belmont when James Smith blocked an extra-point try.